“If you want to go, by all means sneak down the hallway.” Her voice had no give to it. “Makes more sense to stay if you ask me.”
“I guess if you’re gonna twist my arm,” Cassie said. She was already halfway to sleep, sated and warm.
“As long as you’re not a sleep cuddler,” Erin said as though she weren’t still pressed up against Cassie.
Cassie fell asleep instead of teasing her about it.
Twelve
ERIN
Something was poking into Erin’s ribs, hard and solid and unmoving. She brought her hand up to push it away, but froze upon finding bare skin. She opened her eyes.
Right. Cassie.
Cassie, in her bed. The things Erin had whispered to her last night, three fingers deep. The look on Cassie’s face as Erin crawled over her toward the headboard.
Cassie was turned away, toward the pale light drifting through the window, but Erin hid her smile in the pillow anyway. She caressed Cassie’s elbow instead of moving it so her bones stopped jabbing into Erin’s. The touch roused Cassie. She grabbed Erin’s hand and tugged it over and around her.
Cassie yawned. “G’morning.”
“Morning,” Erin said.
She kissed Cassie’s shoulder then pressed her smile there. Cassie shifted toward her, like somehow their entire bodies against each other wasn’t close enough. Her skin was so warm. Erin’s body hummed.
Erin lifted her head to check the clock on the bedside table. Not quite seven thirty.
“Plenty of time,” she murmured, and kissed Cassie.
Cassie’s mouth fell open more than she kissed back, like she hadn’t been expecting it. Erin reveled in surprising her. She had been predictable, dependable for most of her life. This felt better.
It was different from yesterday. More desperate. They’d clearly moved past the no-fucking-while-Parker-was-in-the-house rule, and Erin was sure she’d feel awful about that any minute, but for now she couldn’t help herself.
That wasn’t the only way it was different.
“You don’t taste like mint.”
Cassie squinted at her. “Are you saying I have morning breath?”
“Did you brush your teeth before coming to kiss me good morning yesterday?”
Cassie’s cheeks went pink, but she held on to her affront. “Of course I did. That’s not weird—it’s polite.”
“So I should go brush my teeth first?” Erin was mostly teasing but admittedly a little nervous she’d made a misstep.
“I didn’t say that.”
Cassie licked into Erin’s mouth, hard and intentional.
“You’re an idiot,” Erin said. She kissed her again, smiling almost too hard to do it properly.
Clearly neither of them minded if the other had morning breath. They kissed long enough to chase any remnant of it away, kissed until they tasted of each other. The only clothing between them was Cassie’s pajama pants, which somehow never got removed last night. Erin pushed them down, then pressed her entire body into Cassie’s.
“Again?” Cassie said.
Erin quirked an eyebrow at her. “Are you complaining?”
Cassie shook her head so quickly Erin laughed at her. She pushed her pants the rest of the way off.
It was slow, quiet, sleepy sex. Cassie got her fingers on Erin’s clit about halfway through, and they rutted against each other. They didn’t get any louder than whispers: right there and Christ and you feel so fucking good. They came at the same time, faces buried in each other’s necks, panting.
Afterward they kissed, still slow, languid, melding into each other. Erin shouldn’t fall asleep, but how could she do anything else while Cassie’s fingers combed so gently through her hair?
“Shit.”
Erin breathed deeply, let out a murmur of acknowledgment as she exhaled.
Something pushed her shoulder.
“Erin, wake up!” Cassie hissed.
“Mmm?”
Cassie shoved at Erin’s shoulder again, hard enough to move her entire upper body. “It’s past ten.”
Erin sat bolt upright in bed.
“Shit,” she agreed.
Cassie was already out of the bed, hopping on one leg trying to get into her pants.
“Okay,” Erin said. “Okay. Parker’s probably still asleep.”
She climbed out of bed and Cassie immediately hurled a shirt at her.
“Put clothes on!”
Erin caught the soft gray Henley against her face and inhaled. It smelled like the travel-sized body wash that had appeared in the shower this week.
“This is yours.” A giggle escaped.
“No.” Cassie pointed a finger at her. Her attempt at austerity wasn’t particularly effective, given that she was fully topless. “This is not funny! Do not laugh at my potential impending death!”
Erin bit down on what would’ve been a wave of laughter before throwing the shirt at Cassie. She picked her own up off the floor and pulled it over her head. Her pajama pants were on the other side of the bed. By the time she reached them, Cassie, now fully dressed, was at the window on the side of the room, sliding it open.
“What are you doing?” Erin asked as she put her pants on.
“Is the gutter out here attached well?”
“What?”
“Like is it sturdy?”
“Cassie.”
Cassie looked out the window toward the ground. “It’s not that high up. It’ll probably be fine.”
She actually stuck one of her legs outside the window, straddling the sill. Laughter rattled in Erin’s chest, but she didn’t let it out.
“Cassie,” she repeated. “I can just check and see if her door’s closed. You don’t have to climb out the window.”
None of this should have been funny. It was exactly why they weren’t supposed to have sex while Parker was in the house. But Erin felt ridiculous, like Bugs Bunny in a cartoon, tiptoeing to the bedroom door. Cassie quit examining the sturdiness of the gutter to watch.
Erin opened her door a crack, just enough to see down the hall. Parker’s door was still closed. The tension in her body released, and her shoulders sagged in relief. She turned around, closing her door, her teeth biting hard into her lower lip to stop her laughter. Cassie almost smiled at her before furrowing her brow.
“Are we safe?” she stage-whispered.
Erin nodded, not trusting herself to open her mouth.
Cassie pulled her leg back over the sill. She cringed once she was fully inside. “Oh Jesus, I think I pulled something.”
Erin couldn’t stop it then. She leaned against the door, hand over her mouth, shaking with laughter.
“You were really going to go out the window, huh?”
“I was halfway out the window.”
“How were you going to explain your broken ankle?”
“I don’t know! It was fight or flight!”
The patent ridiculousness of that made Erin double over she was laughing so hard. Cassie looked at her like she’d lost her mind, and maybe she had, focusing on the hilarity of the situation instead of all the ways it could go wrong.
“This is maybe the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” she said, letting out one last chuckle.
Cassie’s face fell. She ran a hand through all that blond hair. “We can stop,” she said, almost but not quite a sulk. “If you want.”
“God, no,” Erin said. She crossed the room to kiss Cassie. “I haven’t had this much fun in years.”